Grove Street Fiduciary LLC Takes Position in Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX)

Grove Street Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in shares of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX - Free Report) during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 1,804 shares of the asset manager's stock, valued at approximately $252,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Blackstone by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Meiji Yasuda Asset Management Co Ltd. now owns 11,426 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $1,970,000 after buying an additional 62 shares during the last quarter. Ascent Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Blackstone by 0.9% during the 4th quarter. Ascent Group LLC now owns 8,522 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $1,469,000 after purchasing an additional 74 shares during the period. Global Assets Advisory LLC boosted its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Global Assets Advisory LLC now owns 4,013 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $697,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the period. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Blackstone by 0.9% during the 4th quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 8,466 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $1,460,000 after purchasing an additional 78 shares during the period. Finally, Loomis Sayles & Co. L P boosted its position in shares of Blackstone by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 1,027 shares of the asset manager's stock worth $177,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares during the period. 70.00% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on BX shares. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $165.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research report on Friday. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Blackstone from $168.00 to $181.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Friday. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $222.00 to $150.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 14th. JMP Securities raised their price target on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a "market outperform" rating in a research report on Friday. Finally, UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Blackstone from $180.00 to $175.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Blackstone has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $168.71.

Blackstone Stock Down 0.1%

NYSE:BX traded down $0.15 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $177.96. 3,595,256 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,164,950. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $149.10 and a 200 day simple moving average of $150.68. Blackstone Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.66 and a fifty-two week high of $200.96. The company has a current ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The company has a market capitalization of $129.85 billion, a PE ratio of 47.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.65.

Blackstone (NYSE:BX - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The asset manager reported $1.21 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.11. Blackstone had a net margin of 20.83% and a return on equity of 20.47%. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.77 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.98 EPS. Blackstone's revenue for the quarter was up 32.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Blackstone Inc. will post 5.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Blackstone Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 11th. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 4th will be paid a $1.03 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, August 4th. This is a positive change from Blackstone's previous quarterly dividend of $0.93. This represents a $4.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.32%. Blackstone's payout ratio is currently 112.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Blackstone

In other Blackstone news, insider Private Credit Stra Blackstone acquired 1,660,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 1st. The shares were bought at an average cost of $15.00 per share, for a total transaction of $24,900,000.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the insider owned 1,666,667 shares in the company, valued at $25,000,005. This trade represents a 24,898.76% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Holdings I. L.P. Blackstone bought 1,189,532 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 18th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $25.22 per share, for a total transaction of $29,999,997.04. Following the acquisition, the insider owned 4,178,771 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $105,388,604.62. This represents a 39.79% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have purchased 2,849,769 shares of company stock valued at $54,932,307. Company insiders own 1.00% of the company's stock.

About Blackstone

Blackstone Inc is an alternative asset management firm specializing in real estate, private equity, hedge fund solutions, credit, secondary funds of funds, public debt and equity and multi-asset class strategies. The firm typically invests in early-stage companies. It also provide capital markets services.